"So, if I wash these vegetables now, can I skip eating them at dinner?" Heige made it clear he truly hated vegetables, especially leafy greens.
"A grown man like you is still a picky eater?" Shi Li shot him a teasing look. 'I, on the other hand, was always a good kid who never got picky about food.'
'I never would've guessed that a guy as huge as Heige would be scared of leafy greens.'
'Maybe getting along with these Beast Husbands isn't so difficult after all.'
"I'm not a picky eater." Heige's face instantly darkened. He turned to the sink and, with a grim expression, began tackling the detestable leafy greens.
The little wolf cub had gotten his hackles up, so Shi Li wisely shut her mouth. She pursed her lips and focused on preparing the raw meat on the cutting board.
'Now, let's sort through the original owner's conflicts with Jensen and Bai Qingye.'
"Alright, I'm about to heat the oil. You might want to stand back a bit," Shi Li said, noticing Heige looked like he wanted to say something but was hesitating.
"No, I mean... why don't I do it?" The thought of hot oil spattering from the pan and hitting Shi Li's hand—her delicate, fair hand would surely get blistered.
"You? You know how to cook?" Shi Li clutched the meat in her left hand and the spatula in her right, refusing to let Heige near them.
Heige shook his head honestly.
"Then go outside, sit down, and wait quietly." Shi Li felt like Heige was a ticking time bomb. 'He might suddenly lunge forward and slam a lid on the pan, ruining everything.' She might as well just shoo him out and be done with it.
But as Shi Li firmly pushed him out of the kitchen, Heige couldn't help but feel a little dazed.
'Is this right?'
'Making me sit on the sofa and wait patiently for dinner while my Female Master is slaving away in the kitchen?'
'If I do this, won't the Female Protection Association come and arrest me?'
But the closed kitchen door was clearly telling him to stay out.
After thinking it over, Heige decided to press his ear against the door and listen for any sounds from inside.
'If my Female Master actually dies in the kitchen, I'll be the unlucky one who can't explain his way out of it!'
He didn't hear any panicked screams from Shi Li. Instead, the aroma of cooking food soon wafted out.
'It smells so good!'
When a knock came at the door again, Heige went to answer it.
It was the same staff members from before. They all caught the scent, their eyes drifting unnaturally toward the interior of the house as they tried to locate the source of the aroma.
The smell was even more incredible than what you'd find in a high-end restaurant.
But Heige blocked all of their gazes with his body.
"You've made your delivery, so you can leave. The Female Master did not invite you in." Heige's voice turned cold as he ordered them to leave. He was already annoyed at the thought that, starting tonight, he'd have to share his time with the little female with two other males.
'Does she want to invite a whole crowd of guests to come watch, too?'
"Alright. Here are the keys. Whether to remove their chains and muzzles is for their Female Master to decide." The keys were supposed to be given directly to the Female Master, but with Heige blocking the way, the men didn't want to be difficult and handed them to him to pass along.
"Come in. She's busy." Though he was very unhappy about sharing, they were already at the door. He couldn't just leave them standing there.
"I'll kill her!" Bai Qingye was relatively calm, though his expression was grim. Jensen, on the other hand, completely flew into a rage.
Even with his hands bound in chains, he lunged forward, intending to rush in and slaughter Shi Li.
But Heige, standing in the doorway, forcefully blocked him.
"Have you been brainwashed? Didn't you want to divorce her from the moment you got married?"
"Let me be the bad guy. If she dies, you'll be a widower and won't have to face the penalties for divorce," Jensen said, staring at Heige in disbelief for blocking him.
When Heige first got married, he was acting like it was the end of the world. Jensen had even been the one to comfort him and tell him to calm down. How could Heige now be siding with that woman, Shi Li!
"If you're going to kill her, at least pick a time when none of us are here. Do you think her terminal is just for decoration?" Heige himself didn't know what came over him; he had stopped Jensen purely on instinct.
But he was too stubborn to show he actually cared about Shi Li, so after a moment's thought, he used her terminal as an excuse.
"Hm? What's all the chatter about?"
"Why don't you invite the guests in? I made way too much food; there's no way the two of us can finish it all." Amidst the gloomy atmosphere, Shi Li's head suddenly peeked out from behind Heige.
Her large, blinking eyes left the two men across from them completely stunned.
They couldn't help but compare the Shi Li before them to the one in their memories. 'Was this little female always this cute?'
The moment she peeked out, Shi Li was filled with regret. She had thought some guests had arrived. Who the hell knew it was these two walking disasters being sent back!
'And I just served my head up on a platter by getting so close!'
'I should've just asked Heige! Why did I have to stick my nose into it?!'
"Oh! Why are you still in chains? Shouldn't they have unlocked you before sending you back?" They were even wearing muzzles.
'Was all this really necessary?'
"The keys are here. They said the decision is up to you." Heige offered her the keys, but Shi Li immediately pushed them back at him.
"You go unlock them. I have a soup on the stove that's almost done. Once they're unlocked, tell them to hurry in, wash their hands, and get ready to eat." Shi Li wasn't an idiot. Judging by Jensen's expression, he looked like he wanted to eat her alive.
'If I actually got that close to unlock them, I'd really have to fear for my life.'
With that, Shi Li scurried back to the kitchen to check on her soup. At that moment, she was far more concerned about her soup than those two men.
The three men's eyes followed Shi Li's slender figure—the apron strings tied in a slightly clumsy bow at her narrow waist, her feet shuffling in fluffy slippers—until the kitchen door swung shut behind her.
They all felt a strange tug at some soft spot in their hearts.
Jensen and Bai Qingye sat stiffly on the sofa, looking extremely unnatural as they watched Shi Li bring out the dishes from the kitchen, one after another, and set them on the table all by herself.
Heige offered to help, but Shi Li refused him as well.
Afraid a brute like Heige might accidentally drop the plates, Shi Li simply had all three of them sit in a row on the sofa and watch her obediently.
"Is this some new android technology?"
"Did Shi Li run off to chase some 'true love' and just abandon this home entirely?" Bai Qingye, silent for a long time, finally spoke his first words of the day.
He'd been sent to jail a while ago and had been locked up for nearly half a year. Technology developed so quickly; it wasn't an impossibility.
Bai Qingye was being completely serious. Before he went in, he had seen news reports about artificial intelligence technology. Developing a human-like android in half a year didn't seem that far-fetched.
"What nonsense are you spouting? You think you're going to find a charging port on me or something?" Shi Li had just finished setting the table and was about to untie her apron when she heard Bai Qingye's remark.
Annoyed, Shi Li walked right up to Bai Qingye and irritably pinched his chin.
"As the first Beast Husband to marry me, shouldn't you, of all people, know best whether I'm the real deal?"